Mass shooting in Aurora,Il

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At least one person is dead and multiple people injured after a shooting at a manufacturing company in Aurora, Illinois, on Friday afternoon. The alleged gunman was apprehended, authorities said.

Police officers responded with a heavy presence to reports of an active shooter at Henry Pratt Co. just after 2 p.m. CST on Friday. About an hour later, authorities said the suspected shooter had been apprehended.

The Kane County Coroner said one person died.

At least two people were admitted to the Amita Health/Presence Mercy Medical Center, the hospital told NBC News. There was no information on their conditions.

Two others are being treated at Rush Copley hospital with injuries that are not life-threatening.

Diana Muniz, an employee at Taqueria Muniz, told NBC Chicago a customer reported hearing numerous shots in the area.

“The customer said they heard one shot fired, then more shots like ‘boom, boom, boom,’” she said

Henry Pratt Company is a large manufacturer of valves and other industrial equipment and owned by Mueller Water Product Inc., an Atlanta-based corporation.

A former warehouse employee who had recently lost his job stormed through his old workplace in suburban Chicago on Friday, killing five workers and injuring five police officers.

The gunman, whom the authorities identified as Gary Martin, 45, of Aurora, Ill., was killed in an exchange of gunfire with officers.

His sister, Tameka Martin, said Mr. Martin had worked at the Henry Pratt Company’s industrial warehouse for about 20 years before he was let go two weeks ago. The police said they believed that Mr. Martin had lost his job even more recently, on Friday.

A worker received non-life-threatening injuries in the shooting at the company’s warehouse, where valves and control devices used in water and power systems are designed.

Four hospitals reported treating at least seven people who were hurt. Among the wounded were five Aurora police officers who were shot and a sixth officer who was injured responding to the gunfire inside the warehouse. The officers’ injuries were not believed to be life threatening.

The officials did not respond to specific questions, and employees reached by phone on Friday night said they had been told not to comment. The company, founded in 1901, has its headquarters in Aurora, according to its website, and also has manufacturing facilities in Washington State and Indiana.

Ms. Martin said she had seen her brother a few days ago at a dinner at her mother’s house, and she described him as “very depressed, very depressed.” She added, “He really didn’t say too much to me.”

Mr. Martin’s family members met with officers at the Police Department late Friday; some embraced and wept.

An angry worker who stormed through a suburban Chicago factory shooting his co-workers after being fired was barred from having the handgun he was carrying, the authorities said on Saturday.

Gary Martin, 45, who died in a shootout with the police after a rampage on Friday that left five workers dead and at least six other people wounded, had his state weapons permit revoked years ago because of a felony assault conviction, the police in Aurora, Ill., said. Still, they said, Mr. Martin’s gun — a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun with a laser sight — was never taken away.

“Some disgruntled person walked in and had access to a firearm that he shouldn’t have had access to,” said Kristen L. Ziman, the chief of police in Aurora, where the shooting took place.

According to Illinois gun law, a person must be granted a Firearm Owners Identification card, or FOID, to possess a firearm. At least two million people in the state have the cards.

But under the law, the process of removing firearms from people whose cards have been revoked is weak, making it easy for some to keep their weapons with little threat of enforcement or penalty.

That appears to have been the case with Mr. Martin, who the police said received a card in January 2014. That March, he applied for a concealed-carry permit, and a background check revealed that he had a felony conviction for aggravated assault in Mississippi from 1995. With that, the Illinois State Police revoked Mr. Martin’s card and mailed him a letter ordering him to relinquish his firearm and card within 48 hours.

The statute allows law enforcement agencies to petition the courts to seize weapons if they aren’t turned in, but in many instances, the remaining weapons go unchecked. Experts said that the state rules — without a clear, mandatory enforcement requirement — leave a gaping loophole for those who choose not to give up their guns. In 2016, only about 4,000 of the 11,000 people whose cards were revoked submitted the mandatory reports explaining what they did with their guns, The Chicago Tribune reported in 2017.

The police on Saturday gave a fuller account of the deadly events inside the Henry Pratt Company warehouse on Friday afternoon, and identified the five workers — all co-workers of Mr. Martin — who were killed.

The victims included some of the company’s most experienced workers but also its newest: Josh Pinkard, who was the plant manager of the warehouse, perished in the shooting, as did Trevor Wehner, who was a student at Northern Illinois University and an intern in the company’s human resources department. Mr. Wehner was expected to graduate from college in May. Friday was the first day of his internship, according to officials from Northern Illinois University.

“He knew he wanted to work in the H.R. business and was hoping this internship would lead into a full-time job in the future,” said Winter Lane, Mr. Wehner’s girlfriend of more than three years, who grew up with him in the same small town of Serena, in north central Illinois.

Everyone there knew Mr. Wehner. He was kind, the most selfless person she had ever met, she said, someone with a big smile and a personality to match. “He always saw the good in everyone,” she said.

Also killed, the police said, were Vicente Juarez, a stock room attendant and forklift operator; Clayton Parks, the human resources manager; and Russell Beyer, a mold operator. Officials at Northern Illinois said that Mr. Parks had also graduated from the university, in 2014, and that it was offering counseling help to those in need. (The school, in DeKalb, Ill., was the site of another mass shooting 11 years ago.)

Abby Parks, the wife of Clayton Parks, said he was devoted to their son, Axel, who is 8 months old. “The family we created together was Clay’s greatest joy,” she said. “He took his responsibilities as a husband and father very seriously and held those titles above all else.” The couple had been married since 2016.

The police first received several 911 calls at 1:24 p.m. on Friday, as frantic callers said there was a shooter at the warehouse. Mr. Martin had been summoned to what the police described as a “termination meeting” at the warehouse where he had worked for at least 15 years. At least two victims were shot at the scene of that meeting.

In China they have mass stabbings

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-26402367

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-43921567

Off topic/deflecting. -10 points.

It’s 30,000 and 20,000 is suicides and another 24,000 kill them selves without guns.
Most of the other 10,000 are police and justified shootings then most of what’s left of that is gang shootings then the remaining is mass shootings and non gang murders.

More people are killed with hands and feet then rifles. Hammers kill more people.
Of the rifle deaths most are from non simi auto rifles like the ar15 which makes up very tiny portion of gun deaths. And a slither of all deaths.
So we should ban hammers except to licensed contractors who have to lock up all their tools into a government controlled storage at the end of every shift.
We should probably have curfure and limit people to leaving their homes only for work and errands this will surely cut down on murder from hands and feet.